


Love Island: Marvel Edition

by acciopsfrap13



Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Avengers Family, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Geographical Isolation, Islands, Quarantine, Stranded, X-men - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25612336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acciopsfrap13/pseuds/acciopsfrap13
Summary: we just wanted to see these characters f***
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov, Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov, Maria Hill/Scott Summers, Ororo Munroe/Scott Summers, Ororo Munroe/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Ororo and Steve

Steve closed his eyes and could feel every single droplet of sweat on his body. He tolerated the heat of the boulder on his back, because it was the only place on the beach where one could sit upright. Out of nowhere, a shade appeared overhead and the spot where Steve was sitting cooled down about 20 degrees. 

“You know, I really like having you on our team,” Steve said with cheeky grin. Ororo flicked her wrist to stabilize the tiny cloud she had made and sat down next to Steve.

“Yeah, this is great really,” she responded dryly. Steve sighed. “No, really! I get to see up close how much of an effective and resourceful team Tony Stark’s Avengers, could, uh…assemble.” Ororo paused and looked at Steve out of the corner of her eye. He managed to glare at her for a full three seconds before he chuckled and shoved her shoulder playfully. From the east, a gust of wind blew right past them blowing Ororo’s gray curls in Steve’s direction. 

“So what’s the story behind your hair?” Steve asked. Ororo chewed the inside of her cheek in concentration. 

“Well Steve, I am a black person, you see—-“

“Fuck off,” Steve said with an eye roll while Ororo feigned offense. “You know what I meant. You’re only five or so years younger than me, but your hair is gray, silver almost.”

Ororo dropped the act and smiled with a shrug of her shoulders.”There’s no story. My mother was part of a long line of witch-priestesses born with white hair. You could say it’s a recessive trait,” she teased. Steve looked at her with an earnest, but soft face and said, “Cool.”

Since the Avengers and X-Men joined forces and started sharing intel, weaponry and personnel, there had been concerted effort to make sure they worked together on all things, which meant each mission was assigned to a team, made up of mutants, Asgardians and super soldiers alike.

Nineteen days ago, Ororo, Natasha, Steve, Bruce, Maria Hill and Scott were on their way back to the Connecticut base of operations after successfully securing a piece of sensitive information from a remote laboratory. They were right on schedule, with twelve hours of flight time left when everything went dark. A frustrated Scott tried everything to re-establish comms with the base, but his efforts were futile and seconds later, their 100 million-dollar jet began to free fall.

“Scott! Do you remember what you saw last on the radar?! Land? Open water? Fucking floating superhuman prisons?” Maria shouted. 

“I can’t remember!” Scott shouted back. “There’s a chance that we could be on the far edge of the Genoshan Pacific territories, but we’ve covered so much ground that any island we’d encounter would be uninhabited, meaning no tech, none of the equipment we need to repair the jet, no shelter—-“

“HELLO!” Natasha yelled. “Not everyone on this plane is goddamn invincible! Can we figure out something fast? I don’t want to die in a fucking plane crash!”

“Nat’s right!” Steve exclaimed as he tried to beat gravity by clutching a loose seatbelt strap.

“Storm! Can you conjure up some kind of air bubble to protect the jet?”

“I can try,” she responded. Her eyes turned completely white and she began to hover slightly.  
“Bruce, buddy—-,” Steve started. His sensitive friend’s skin started to ripple and stretch.

“I know,” He said through clenched teeth. Splotches of green quickly spread across his body and he jumped out of the place, falling through the sky as the Hulk. After what felt like an eternity, the jet landed on a beach of black sand as smoothly as a 35 ton object could. Ororo dropped out of her hover and waited for her eyes to readjust. Maria, Steve, Nat and Scott released their grip on their lifelines and dropped to the floor of the cockpit . Outside, the big guy grunted, wanting a response from his teammates.

“Affirmative!” Maria shouted. “We’re all good!”

Today, they were just okay. They kept track of the date using the jet’s analog clock, but that was the only thing that gave them any sense of what was going on in their world.


	2. Ororo and Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> first chapter continued!

Long abandoned were their spandex uniforms. After their first sticky night on the island, they got comfortable around each other in whatever combination of vibranium wool compression undergarments they felt wearing that day. Steve opted out of wearing a shirt today and Ororo had to remind herself not to stare. She and T’Challa had been talking off and on for months and he probably thought she was ghosting him. Either way, she was currently single and craving the feel of skin against skin. Human contact. Touch of any kind. 

It wasn’t that the other Avengers were especially standoff-ish, they just didn’t know Scott and Ororo that well yet. And Scott wasn’t exactly someone she felt she could lean on right now. Before their crash, Jean had just returned to the X-Men and he had no idea what to do. He and Emma were happy, but the Phoenix always complicated things. The man was a mess and preferred to spend his days alone with his thoughts on the northern shore of the island. Steve was nice enough though. He was the most optimistic. And the only one that made the tiniest effort to connect with the new guys. 

“So how did you meet Xavier and the others,” Steve asked chin tucked into his shoulder. 

Ororo snorted and smiled. “Thats a really long story man.”

Steve nodded and sighed himself. “I know what you mean.” They sat in silence for a while, bored with the natural beauty of the island and all of the things they had already tried to pass time with: hours of yoga and meditation, reading through all of the handbooks and papers that were on the jet, crafting with whatever plant scraps they could find, and trying all of the possible combinations of fruits and meat and familiar-looking greens they could find. She had a hunch that Natasha and Bruce were hooking up even though they had separated late last year. 

“You ever tried grass?” Steve asked after a while. Ororo arched a brow. 

“Uh…a couple times, yeah,” she responded recalling the glittery costumes and hazy clouds of the Lollapolooza Birnin Zana T’Challa and Zuri had taken her to. 

“That’s one thing in all my 90 plus years that I haven’t tried, with all the bootcamps and stuff. I mean, Bucky always…well, yeah.”

“So you’ve tried molly and group sex and bubble tea and—“

“Okay, okay, one of the many things I’ve had yet to try,” Steve responded. 

“Well, hit me up when we’re on the outside, I’d smoke you out.”

“Yeah?” Steve smiled a wide grin. 

“For sure man, yeah.” Ororo shrugged. Steve hoisted himself up and brushed the sand off his shorts.

“You know, I’m gonna hold you to that once we’re back right?”

“Please do,” Ororo laughed. Steve waved a little wave and turned to head back to their campsite. She found herself staring again as he walked away.

Man, that was America’s ass.


	3. Bruce and Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> middle-aged mark ruffalo??? um yes pls. we are horny on main tonight ladies

Natasha rolled over on her straw pellet. Despite all the nights spent on this island so far, she still wasn’t used to her new bed. She had slept in a lot of uncomfortable places during her tenure as a KGB agent, but this fucking sucked. Like seriously, they were part of a team funded jointly by Tony Stark, the US government and the royal family of Wakanda, and they were sleeping on straw. She sighed and bit her cheek. 

Bruce had technically been the one to end things. Natasha had been in Beirut, tying up the loose ends of an old assignment. She was surprised that he called first, she was always the one to break the silence after a disagreement. He finally couldn’t take it anymore: her indecisiveness and unwillingness to commit, the months at a time apart, the lack of shared life experiences and interests. And she didn’t blame him. For most of her adult life, yeah she had been too busy for long-term relationships. She made sure every hookup ended with at least her coming, but there wasn’t much else to them. She didn’t want to get to know anyone, she didn’t need the guilt of someone getting hurt because of her. Bruce was different though. He was a friend, a colleague. They had been through life or death situations together so many times that they for sure forgot a few. He respected her first for her skill, her leadership and her confidence, especially because he didn’t so easily see those things in himself. 

After one particularly successful mission, the Avengers had gotten together at Bruce’s modest flat for drinks to celebrate. Bruce and Natasha only had eyes for each other the whole night. Everyone else had left around 1 am, but Natasha stayed for one more round. They inched closer and closer together with each sip of their drinks…and yeah. They kept it up for as long as they could, seeing each other in person when possible, running up their phone bills on Tony’s dime, Until one day they couldn’t.

However, being trapped on an island, with nothing else to do and no one else to see, has its ways of making people more forgetful and more forgiving. Bruce and Natasha had already had some heated late-night hookups, sure. But they were different. He was different. For one, his hair had grown grayer since the last time they had seen each other. He was more confident, more in control of the big guy. And he seemed to be…over her. So their island hookups always ended before she wanted them to. He always pushed away first and said, “let’s just go to bed” or “this isn’t good for either of us”. 

Yet she still stuck her foot out and nudged Bruce firmly in the back. And then harder when he didn’t stir.

“Fuck,” he grumbled softly.  
“Come to the cove with me. I can’t sleep.”

Face in his straw, he mumbled, “Nat, not tonight.” She moved closer to him. 

“Come on,” she whispered in his ear. Natasha fingers traced his spine and she could feel him stir under her. 

“You’re impossible.”

As quietly as they could, they left camp and walked in silence toward the cove, brushing away thick, scratchy foliage as they went. It was almost as if this cove were a “hideaway” that all of the stranded heroes used for covert rendezvous. She could’ve sworn she saw Maria head this way one night, followed by Scott minutes later.

The normally turquoise water sparkled and looked black under the moonlight. One toe touched the water and suddenly she was under its surface with only her sense of touch intact. Strong, muscly arms gripped her and she was above the water for a second before she couldn’t breathe again. Her mouth was preoccupied with something else. Bruce sucked on her bottom lip as if he hadn’t tasted her before.

Natasha ran her hand through his short, wet hair as she tried to maintain her balance by swinging her legs around his waist. Bruce held on tighter and their bodies pressed even harder against each other. No amount of vibranium wool could conceal how much they wanted this. Natasha pull away and cupped Bruce’s face in her hands. His facial expression was a steely one she didn’t recognize. Green crept up his neck and the veins in his neck bulged in protest.

“Can we, get out of the water?” Natasha asked with a small grimace. The lines returned to Bruce’s forehead and he released his hold on her.

“Yeah that probably make the most sense right now,” he agreed, not meeting her eyes. 

They waded awkwardly to a dry spot outside of the water and caught their breath.

Natasha’s damp hair clung to her head. Her hair was growing out and in the daytime, everyone could see the brown roots returning as her bright red dye wore off. But tonight, soaked and wavy, her hair looked to be a uniform dark shade which only made her green eyes seem even brighter than they usually did. Her fancy sports bra and compression shorts clung to her curves like every other set would, proving that even vibranium wasn’t a match for good ol’ water. 

Bruce did nothing to hide his stare. His own fancy shorts grew tighter with each passing minute and eventually he leaned in to kiss her. Their respective memories forced flashbacks upon them as they embraced. With every swirl of their tongues and tastes of each other’s sweat, visions of innocent brushes against each other’s limbs that escalated to long walks and cute text exchanges that eventually led to that first night of many, many sleepovers raced through their minds. All of the heated video calls, days spent thousands of miles apart and short-lived breakups were blissfully ignored.

They peeled off their wet clothes and felt cozier than they had since getting stranded. Bruce’s teeth pulled on Natasha’s left breast in way that felt foreign to the sweet, soft side of him that she knew so well. Her back arched and as she looked up to the stars, neck loose with ecstasy, she decided that she liked this new Dr. Banner. 

Bruce flipped her over so that they were chest to chest, with Natasha’s naked back pressed into the ground.

“Are you sure you want this?” he growled into her ear, already sure of her answer. Natasha rolled her hips into his in response. They had sex for the first time in what seemed like forever. With every thrust, it felt like Bruce was reaching a part of her he hadn’t found before. They were far enough from the campsite to make as much noise as they wanted to, but Natasha still found herself stifling guttural groans. 

“Have you been seeing someone else? How the fuck did you learn how to do this?” she asked when she had gained enough strength. 

He bit his lip and pushed harder. Natasha’s eyes rolled to the back of her head and she decided she could wait for his answer. He came first, almost with a growl, and he didn’t take his eyes off of her for one second. Still very hard, he grinned deeply and slowly against her until her legs involuntarily shot straight into the air away from his body. She finally let out that sound she had been holding in, and he held her until her body stopped quaking and she lay still from exhaustion. 

Bruce pulled himself away. Sitting upright and leaning with his arms behind him he sighed. 

“After we broke up, Tony took me out on the town, to cheer me up, you know?. So I’ve…learned quite a few new things.”


	4. Maria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> couldn't ignore actual substance for much longer! please drop ideas/requests for what you'd like to see in the comments <3

Maria and Steve ran laps together every morning at dawn. He was definitely the person she felt “closest” to on the island just because they had been on so many assignments together. It was nice to hang out with someone she didn’t feel pressured to hold conversation with. Scott and Ororo seemed fine, but she didn’t sign up for this mission to make friends. Banner was older than all of them and she was perfectly comfortable with being the big green science guy and nothing more. Natasha…Maria distrusted other spies and didn’t care for the drama that seemed to follow the Russian. 

This morning, she and Steve had instant oatmeal together in easy silence and said their goodbyes. She watched him make his way back to the campsite and set off into the brush to do some exploring. In the three weeks since they had crashed, Maria estimated that she had probably mapped the entire five mile radius of their wreckage, including the beach and that secret cove Natasha and Bruce snuck off to every once in a while that wasn’t so secret. Hill wanted to make a name for herself within S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Fury was a great mentor and patriot, but he bucked authority too often for him to be director long. She was at the top of her class in the academy and in three years time, she expected to collect enough high-profile cases to be his replacement. That meant she was going to stay sharp on this island and find a way home. 

The two X-Men were more powerful than the rest of them combined, but they were young and still felt too out of place amongst their new government-backed teammates to lead. Scott especially seemed like an emotional wreck. The isolation was the hardest for him and he had lost all motivation. She kept tabs on everyone else’s movements and mental states. If they were ever going to get out of here, all of them would have to snap out of it and fucking act. 

Two hours into her hike, she stopped to take stock of her surroundings. She identified five edible plant species and many more she couldn’t classify. There were no tracks on the ground other than her own. She squatted and scooped up a handful of soil. Weird, she thought. She couldn’t see any insects, not even a tiny beetle. They had all successfully caught the occasional fish and fatty rodent on their side of the island, but there wasn’t any evidence of animal life this deep into the center. When she reached for her water and saw that it was empty, Maria decided that she would turn back. Gradually, the sounds of birds and crickets returned and she found herself in the same place she had started in. 

In a not insignificant amount of time, she arrived back at their campsite and dropped her pack to ground. It looked like her teammates had just finished lunch. Bruce was re-reading the jet manual for the fourth time while Natasha sharpened knives. Ororo and Scott were deep in conversation, and Steve was power-napping, legs halfway outside of his sleeping pellet. 

“We need a plan,” Maria announced. Ororo and Scott stopped and turned to her. Natasha huffed and kept working on her knives. 

Bruce flipped a page and answered without looking up, “We can’t do anything until this jet is up and running. We can’t fix the jet without an arc reactor engine replacement, and we can’t build an arc reactor with plants and rocks. We’ve been over this.”

“I think there’s something here that can help us.”

Steve opened his eyes and asked, “What did you find?”

Maria sat and crossed her legs. “It’s not necessarily what I found, but what I didn’t find. About seven miles into the island’s center, all of the animals disappear. Everything, not even a single bug.” Bruce closed his book and Natasha finally looked up. 

“There has to be a reason why everything avoids the center. I’m thinking an untapped energy source, or—“

“—-a more powerful life form. Something to be afraid of,” Bruce finished. Maria shrugged.

“Either way, we need to find out. It’s the best lead we’ve had so far to figuring out how to get off this island.” 

“Tomorrow,” Scott said. His shades hid his eyes, but none of them needed to see those to understand how serious he was. “We’ll have an answer by the end of the day, no matter what. Let’s suit up.”

There was an energy in the air none of them had felt since the crash. Sure, they spent the first week or so brainstorming, half-expecting a rescue plane to land any minute. As time passed, most of them accepted that their efforts were futile. No one was coming. They were going to be in isolation for a while. Endless days followed by endless nights of nothing and no one sucked the life out of these people who were used to non-stop travel, constantly surrounded by others and few and far between moments for themselves. 

But now, there was hope.


	5. Steve

Steve was double-checking the charge on his radio. Bruce had made sure that everyone’s comms devices were synced before tomorrow’s expedition. He hadn’t needed to pick up his shield in weeks, but it still gleamed and felt light in his hands. Suit still fit perfectly thanks to his daily workouts.

After he set aside everything neatly for the morning, he started peeling off his uniform. He preferred this latest design to his classic stars and stripes. Tony had designed them all these sleek midnight onesies basically. His suit had an “A” to the upper left of his heart and Scott and Ororo’s had an “X” on the opposite side. As he was stepping out of the legs of his suit, he looked up and saw Ororo doing the same in the space she’d claimed at camp.

Her brown skin was glory where everyone else had patchy, red sunburns. She looked strong, but lithe, like a dancer. A thought that made him blush crossed his mind and caught him by surprise. 

“Your thoughts are loud, man,” Scott said as he approached Steve from behind. Steve turned and glared.

“That’s not okay,” he said firmly. Then he furrowed his brow. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Ororo is my sister. You seem like a good guy, you do. But she doesn’t need you or any other Avenger to complicate her life any further, personally and professionally.” Scott’s ’90’s-heartthrob curtain bangs brushed the rim of his red frames as he inched closer to Steve. Scott was much slimmer than Steve, but almost as tall. Few others, human or mutant hadn’t dared to get in the captain’s face like this.

“Understand?” Scott asked. 

Before Steve could answer, Ororo brushed through the leaves to the spot where the two men were standing. 

“What’s the problem here?” she asked, hands on her hips.

Scott didn’t take eyes off of Steve. “I don’t know. Do we have a problem here…Cap?” Okay, so this dude is an asshole, Steve thought to himself. 

“No, we’re good,” He replied, turning to Ororo. Scott sighed and walked past Steve and Ororo back to the common space. They both watched him leave. 

“Dude, what was that?” Ororo asked, blue eyes piercing Steve’s own. Steve shook his head and turned back to her.

“Scott’s a bit high-strung, no?” Steve asked with a smile. Ororo snorted.

“He’s a dick, but he’s intensely protective of his family. He’s known loss his whole life. And with all of the shit going on with Jean…just, he’s going through a rough patch.” Steve tried his best not to roll his eyes. This was a hard time for all of them. 

“Jean, why does that name sound so familiar?” Steve asked. 

Ororo waved her hand. “Too long of a story for now. Later. Maybe.” She smiled softly. 

They stayed that way, standing close and smiling at each other, for a moment. Steve looked away first, blushing.

Ororo laughed and tried to catch his eyes again, “What?” Steve looked at her again with the full force of his all-American charm. 

He shrugged, “I can’t help it, I still get nervous around a pretty girl.” She scrunched up her nose.  
“Ewwww,” she laughed. Grabbing his hands, she said, “Here,” and leaned up to kiss him. Their full lips met and it was better than most first kisses. Not too wet, not too dry. And his lips were warm! T’Challa had a surprisingly low body temperature and too often Ororo was taken aback by how cold his mouth seemed. 

Ororo broke away first and said, “Now there’s no more curiosity. Nothing to daydream about, no distractions. We already know what this is like.” She shrugged a soft shrug and dropped his hands, confidently turning back towards the campsite to make her own preparations for tomorrow. 

But she was wrong. Now Steve had had a taste, quite literally. And his mind would be on nothing else.


	6. Maria and Natasha

Night was approaching and Natasha felt good about tomorrow. She’d spent most of her life training for the worst and then actually being up against the worst, so few things surprised her still. Alien, mutant, human, animal, mystical, whatever mysterious “presence” at the island’s center might very well be able to kill her, but it wouldn’t scare her. She plopped down next to the campfire and started munching on a bowl of nuts that had been left alone in the open.

“Dude!” Maria spat, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. She snatched the bowl out of Nat’s hands and pointed to the “MH” inscribed on its side.

“O-kay, my bad I didn’t see that,” Natasha said. Maria rolled her eyes and sat to eat her snack.

Mumbling half to herself she said, “I leave my food unattended for five seconds—“

“Do you have some issue with me?” Natasha interrupted. Maria shot her an annoyed look.

“I just sometimes question your…placement on this team. Like, I’m just not really sure what you bring to the table,” Maria stated plainly. 

Natasha was fuming. “Are you serious? I’m a highly-trained agent and have completed hundreds of successful missions!” Hundreds? Maria thought to herself. Yeah right. 

“I speak five languages! I fly planes! What more do I need to do to prove myself?!”

Maria didn’t hold back, “We’re all qualified. We’ve all proven ourselves. It’s just that I haven’t really seen you contribute anything substantial to our efforts to get our of here. From my perspective, it seems like you spend your days tanning and your nights ‘sneaking’ off with Banner.” 

Maria knew she wasn’t being entirely fair. Natasha was working out regularly and doing her share of foraging and keeping the common space clean. But she didn’t seem to spend her free time doing anything particularly…useful. Maria went out daily to learn more about the island, Bruce reading up on jet tech, Ororo spent hours analyzing the weather systems and trying to sense any approaching vessels in the water. Steve…built stuff. Probably. And she was sure Scott was doing some kind of telepathic shit, considering all the time he spent alone seemingly staring off into the distance. 

But honestly she couldn’t help but leap at the chance to attack her longtime rival. She was just as skilled as the Russian and was often looked over for “superhero” missions, because the others were wary that she’d narc to S.H.I.E.L.D. about them. 

“Oh and like you haven’t scratched any itches? You and Scott sure seem to be making use of the same hideaway,” Natasha smirked. 

Maria scoffed. “Excuse me?”

Nat rolled her eyes, “Oh come on! I saw you two sneaking off, one after the other, the other night!”

Maria racked her brain trying to think of what Natasha could be referencing and came up short. 

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. I have never once even touched Summers, other than to shake his hand. And ew…he’s definitely not my type.”

“But I saw you two. Head into the brush one night. Toward the same spot,” Natasha said, not backing down. 

“I probably had to pee! And I don’t know maybe he peed too?” Maria said laughing. She threw her hands up. “But I definitely, absolutely always went alone, did my business alone and came back alone. I never even saw him in passing,” Maria admitted.

“Huh,” Natasha said reaching for the bowl Maria had set on the ground during her defense. In between crunches she offered, “Well, I suppose we both had some misunderstandings about each other.”

Maria rolled her eyes and allowed Nat to keep snacking. Whatever. She and Natasha could be cordial for the sake of the team. But Maria wasn’t letting her guard down just yet. For a while they sat there alone, sharing the nuts. And similar thoughts were running through her own head. Natasha didn’t trust other spies either. Especially not S.H.I.E.L.D.-trained spies, who worked for an organization with worse baggage than the Red Room. God, and Maria was such a snob for “professionalism”, a patriarchal, sexist, racist, capitalist notion. Who cared if she slept with her co-workers? She still got shit done. But for now, yes, she could be cordial too. 

———

Natasha was still thinking about her little spat with Maria when she climbed into the tent Bruce had built for himself. His straw roof and spare blankets from the jet strewn around gave the space such a cozy feeling. Bruce’s claiming of the one-surviving hurricane lamp helped too. 

“She’s such a fucking bitch, right?” Bruce closed his book and looked at Natasha over his wire-rimmed frames. 

“Didn’t you start eating her food?”

Natasha glared at him. “Like yeah, but she’s always been a bitch.”

“Hmmm,” Bruce paused. “I think she’s just a bit more…serious than you are. And that’s okay that you’re different, in, uh, that way.” Natasha rolled her eyes. So everyone thought she was a joke. 

“Whatever,” she said, snuggling up to Bruce and forcing his arm over her shoulder. He stiffened and his arms awkwardly hovered over her. 

“Uh…what are you doing?” he asked. 

Natasha shrugged and rubbed his thick, muscly chest. “Maria basically said everyone knows about us, so what’s the point in hiding?” she mumbled into his shirt.

Bruce grimaced and gently peeled Natasha off of him. “Well Natasha, I thought we talked about this…there’s no ‘us’ anymore. We agreed that being stranded on an island was an extenuating circumstance, so if we felt that we had, uh, needs that the other could meet, then we’d do that, but that doesn’t mean all of the other, uh, relationship stuff that used to come with that,” he said, hands gesticulating in odd, circular motions. 

Natasha’s face was stony. “Of course I understand that. I only meant that if we wanted to meet the fucking need of fucking sharing a bed, then we don’t have to do that in secret, because we’re not really a secret anymore.”

Bruce’s eyes wandered to the tent ceiling as if the response he was looking for was hidden between the pieces of straw. “But,” he sighed and rubbed his hand over his mouth and chin, “I don’t need or want, even, to share a bed. With you.”

Nat pushed Bruce away as she came up to a seated position. “So, just the vagina’s enough?”

A long pause passed, as Bruce’s face shifted through various expressions of confusion.

“Uh, forgive me, I’m really not trying to say the wrong thing here, but uh, I thought that’s what we both wanted? Easy, no strings attached, no relationship stuff, just sex…?” Bruce said slowly and carefully. He inched his way into a seated position of his own, a good number inches further from the spy who now sat tall, perched like a cobra, seconds from attacking. Then suddenly, her body sunk into a more relaxed position, shoulders shrugged down. 

She tilted her head and admitted, “Well yeah, that’s what we agreed to, but I didn’t think that didn’t include the occasional, convenient sleepover.” She pouted her full lips and widened her eyes, a maneuver that got her her way every single time with Bruce. When a full five seconds passed and he hadn’t caved, a tiny super small, like super small, piece of herself died inside. Maybe this really was over. 

Bruce sighed. “Look Nat, you’re an amazing woman. And friend, really. But…we’re been through a lot. We’re also at different life stages and…” he sighed while looking for words. “I just don’t want to feel like I’m rushing you or keeping you away from certain experiences. And I personally, don’t want all the ups and downs of being together if it’s not, you know, going anywhere.” 

Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here. Natasha needed to remove herself from the situation. Her heart was racing and there was the tingle traveling through her limbs. For a second, she thought she may be having a heart attack. She looked around and patted her body as if she had lost something in a pocket. 

“Um,” she started, still looking around. “I’m just gonna go. I, um, yeah.” Natasha ran her fingers through her hair and got up to leave. She half-expected Bruce to ask her to wait, but he didn’t.

She felt an itch in her eyes she hadn’t felt since the early days of her training. As she slipped into her sleepwear, an old t-shirt of Steve’s, she felt wetness streaming down her cheek and when it reached her mouth, she tasted salt.


End file.
